The Sharp Blades: Joy and Hope
by AngelofPrey
Summary: Fix-it fic for the end of The Devil's Whore. Because I couldn't stand to leave it without a happy ending. Angelica/Sexby


A/N: No one will ever read this, but this is more for me anyway. I couldn't stand to leave it without a happy ending.

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Four days on the road to London and Thomas Rainsborough comes to you in a dream and releases you from your duty, charges you with another. _Love her. Do what I could not. See her bear your children and grow old together. Leave Cromwell to the ages and let him be buried by them_.

You wake from the dream. Your face wet with tears from the visions of what could never be. Your heart aches for your wife, and the wee babe that you saw her place in your arms, but still you continue down the road.

One day's ride from London and you lie awake beneath a full moon, pressing the garter to your lips and marveling over how much your life has changed since the first time you did this. She loves you now. You never thought it possible. But even your old jaded heart knew it to be true when she looked into your eyes and said, _Aye, Edward_. _You are yourself_.

That night you dream that you are betrayed. One of Cromwell's retainers, your co-conspirator, loses his nerve and you are cornered like a wolf in its den hiding from a pack of hunters. Your last thought is of Angelica before your brains plaster the inn-room's walls.

Dreams are dreams, and nothing more. You tell yourself this. You repeat it like the prayers you haven't said since you hanged Angelica. But still the visions you saw while you slept slither up and down your spine all the way to London.

Once in place, you test the weight of your pistols for the hundredth time. They weigh the same as they had out in the fields of the Fanshawe estate, but each time you raise them you feel they must be different in some way. Thomas' ghost once more appears, and his eyes are pleading. _Please, Sexby_. He seems to say. _Go home to Angelica. Nothing but death awaits you here_. You blink, and he's gone. But when you look around the room you find that every detail is the same as from your dream the day before. A cold fist wraps itself around your guts and you know that it's now or never.

You pass the soldiers headed up to your room on your way out the door, they do not recognize you. You do not know what becomes of your co-conspirator, but if you know Cromwell, he was probably on his way to the Tower. The bells toll for the crowning of a new king, but there is nothing joyous in their peal. They wail, you think, for the futility of the battles fought in resistance of this day. You beat your horses' flanks mercilessly, urging the beast to carry you faster, further away from tyranny, and closer to the future that you hope to be bright enough to make this betrayal you committed against yourself worth it.

Though you would have gladly followed her across the water to Massachusetts if need be, you are relieved to learn that she is still at Fanshawe House when you return. You enter the house unannounced. Elizabeth Lilburne is with her, comforting her through the loss of _yet another_ husband. You hear her bemoan that she is cursed, that any man she comes to love must die. That she must truly be the Devil's whore, because he will let her have no other master. You step from the shadows saying, _Then it is a good thing I am but your humble servant, Madam_. She weeps, and she wails, and she _loves_ you, this even your jaded old heart knows to be true. Then she whispers to you that _she's pregnant_ , and you fall to your knees, thanking a god you didn't think you believed in for a brighter future.

Nine months later the midwife places the babe in your arms though you protested that you did not know how to hold a baby and your good hand shakes with nerves. The girl is tiny, but _what a healthy pair of lungs_. She came into the world _screaming_ and you know, you _know_ she will be at least as opinionated as her mother, and twice as reckless… She is _your_ daughter too after all. Angelica is radiant and exhausted, and you are weeping because the baby quieted the moment she settled in your arms, and you never thought that something so innocent could ever feel safe in your embrace.

Angelica still sees the Devil, and you still see Thomas. You each have your demons to bear. Elizabeth grows more precocious and more beautiful with each passing day, but she grows in a land free from war and tyranny. All those who had played a large part in the old world were dead; their hopes, their dreams gone with them. All but you and Angelica. Yet We are the world we live in, or so Angelica believed. For you, it is enough to say that there is love and the sharp blades; joy and hope.

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A/N: Obviously I borrowed some of the last paragraph shamelessly straight from Angelica's end monologue. Cause I figured why mess with a good thing?


End file.
